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The Long Tail
As an avid reader, I don’t always try to limit myself to specific genres. I’ll read anything as long it’s underlying premise captivates me and just the other night I finished reading The Long Tail by Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired Magazine. He explains how one simple principle is behind so many of the social and economic changes we are seeing with the internet.
For example, let me ask you this. When you’re in a mood to indulge in a good movie do you go to a rental place that offers only the newest releases or do you go to a place that offers older films in addition to anything recent? Most consumers would settle for the latter, hence the popularity of Netflix. The fastest growing part of their business is sales from products that aren’t available in traditional physical retail stores at all. The same concept applies to online business such as eBay and Amazon.
That’s the basic point of this book. Unlimited selection is revealing truths about what consumers really want. The more we find, the more we want and we eventually discover that our tasted is not just limited to what’s popular now. Think about it; how often do you find telling yourself “Oh, I can find that on eBay” whenever a rare piece that you’ve been in constant search for fails to become available in the mall? Me, constantly.
The book is a very interesting read for anyone wondering how the internet functions and how it’s changed our world and it resonated with me as a frequent Amazon shopper, iTunes user and avid blogger. Although I have to admit that the book feels at time like an endless article filled with repetitive examples to justify the theory but I still enjoyed it.
